


It's Just A Bad Day (not a bad life)

by amethyst-noir (Arbonne)



Series: Prompt Collection [22]
Category: Doctor Strange (2016), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Cloak of Levitation (Marvel), Flirting, Getting Together, Hurt Stephen Strange, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Protective Tony Stark, Self-Harm, Tony Takes Care of Stephen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-15
Updated: 2018-11-15
Packaged: 2019-08-24 04:17:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16632767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arbonne/pseuds/amethyst-noir
Summary: When Stephen doesn't react to his increasingly worried messages Tony decides to visit the elusive sorcerer. He's just in time to rescue Stephen from himself.





	It's Just A Bad Day (not a bad life)

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt-time, once again! I love h/c and Anon(s) apparently like the way I write it. Otherwise I wouldn't get lovely prompts like this one:  
>  _(I’d like to apologise in advance for this prompt. It is actually heart-breaking and incredibly horrific. I am very, very sorry) (hurt and comfort) Post Infinity War - Tony hasn’t seen or heard from Stephen ever since he was brought back from the Soul Stone. He gets concerned and goes to the Sanctum to find him. But is instead met with the horrifying sight of Stephen sitting unconscious in the bathtub, bleeding out from the galaxy of scars and cuts on his arms._
> 
> I took it and then it ran away with me. It's not _quite_ self-harm since Stephen hurts himself for another reason but the warning still stands. Proceed with caution, please. I tried to make amends for all the pain by putting in flirting and a ton of comfort.
> 
> The title is taken from GUNSHIP's _When You Grow Up, Your Heart Dies_.

“Doctor Strange? If you could call me back it would be appreciated.”

“Strange? Pick up your phone or I swear I'll…”

“Wizard? Call me, please.”

“Stephen? Just call, okay? I’m sorry about what I said.”

“Stephen, please… if you don’t call me back in the next hour I’m coming over to your museum and drag you out myself.” 

* 

Stephen put his arms underwater and watched his blood dilute in the water. It looked almost pretty. With a sigh he leaned back and closed his eyes. _Just for another five minutes_ , he promised himself. Then he would get up and take care of the mess.

Instead of doing that he spelled to water to stay hot forever.

Later, he’d deal with it all later.

*

“Okay, Strange, that’s it. I can only handle being ignored for so long. You’ve got nobody but yourself to blame.” Tony had all his arguments ready. He knew how to react, whatever Strange might throw at him. He’d practiced, he’d run through every possible scenario. At least twice.

He was prepared to camp out on the steps of the Wizard’s house. He was prepared to blast the door down. He was prepared to shout until the man threw a fireball at him just to shut him up.

He wasn’t prepared to go up the stairs and had the doors open up for him by themselves.

“Wow,” he said softly as he slowly and carefully went into the house. “Stephen?” he called but the only thing he got back was silence. Not even an echo of his voice. Creepy. He looked at the big staircase which had been destroyed by Bruce’s return to earth. It had been repaired and looked as ancient as the rest of the house. “Someone home?” he tried again. Nothing.

“Hello? Strange? It’s nice that you let me in but good hosts also kind of show themselves, you know?” He turned around and tried to remember the little he’d seen of the place before the first attack. Where could he be? “Stephen?!” This time his voice was considerably louder but also higher. Unease was creeping up on him and his bad feeling intensified. Something wasn’t right.

He braved the first one of the steps and after not being rejected by it he took the next one. It was as if he was being led by a sixth sense or something.

On the first floor there was nothing but closed doors and a feeling of desolate loneliness. Tony went up to the next one.

He’d barely braved the last step when his was way blocked by something red. “Hey, Cloak-thing!” Tony tried to get around the levitating fabric but it managed to convey a shaking of its non-existent head and grabbed on to his left arm. “Okay, I get it. You have something to show to me, right? Lead on, Red.”

The rest of the voyage was swift since the Cloak more or less dragged Tony along at warp-speed. They went up yet another set of stairs - was this building really that tall? - before he almost smashed face-first into a solid wooden door. 

“What the hell?”

The Cloak mimicked impatient foot-tapping and gestured at the door. The “open it up already” couldn’t have been clearer if it had been shouted. “Okay, okay, I’m doing it! Slow down, whatever’s behind that door…” The rest of his words died unspoken as he finally managed to get it open and saw what lay behind it. “Oh my God.”

It was the Cloak once again who gave him a push and brought his brain back online. He more or less stumbled across the room to the almost overflowing and steaming hot bathtub. The bathtub which contained one unconscious sorcerer and a lot of suspiciously red tainted water. The metallic tang in the air was the final clue that it wasn’t some fancy bubble-bath.

“Stephen?”, he called softly and reached out to feel for a pulse on his throat. It was probably only Stephen’s considerable height that had kept him from sliding down the bathtub and drowning himself. Tony had the dull feeling that he didn’t want to see what was under the steaming water. The blood had do come from somewhere but as long he didn’t see the damage he could pretend it wasn’t that bad. “Please wake up and scream at me for disturbing your bath time,” he begged. He found a pulse, regular and steady. Tony took a relieved breath and a lot of his tension vanished from one second to the next. He went down on his knees and surveyed the scene.

Stephen showed no signs of waking up. Time to investigate then. He swallowed and after a moment of hesitation put his hand into the warm - no, _hot_ \- water to try and find one of Stephen’s arms. He’d need the leverage to get him out of the tub. “I’m not trying to feel you up, promise,” he whispered as his searching fingers encountered Stephen’s thigh and pelvis. He could only feel solid muscle and bone there, and not an ounce of fat as he brushed Stephen’s belly. “You need to eat more, Stephen.” He finally found Stephen’s wrist and carefully encircled it with his fingers. He could feel scars and hard metal beneath the skin.

When he brought up Stephen’s arm from under the water he forgot everything about too little food or damaged hands. He stared at the bleeding wounds and only saw red. In every sense of the word. Frantically he braved the water again to bring up Stephen’s other arm. The same picture.

One cut after the other, all prettily arranged in something Tony assumed where runes. It would have almost looked nice, if it hadn’t been carved into Stephen’s skin. The cuts weren’t too deep but dangerous enough in combination with the hot water. A little bit deeper and it would probably already be too late.

“Oh, Stephen.” This time it was barely a sigh and Tony suddenly had to fight back tears. “What have you done to yourself?” The turned around to address the Cloak. “Red, do you have something like a first aid-kit in this Disneyland? And towels?” He’d looked around and seen nothing. “I want to get him dry and patched up. And show me where to put him.” He hesitated for a moment. “Please,” he added.

The thing vanished, presumably to bring the requested items. Good clothing was hard to find but this one was the best.

“And now to you, Mr. Sorcerer. I’m sorry but we have to forget about your dignity now.” He tapped the housing of the nanites and a partial armor formed around his upper body and his arms. But he left his hands free of it - he needed the strength to get Stephen out of the water but he wanted to touch him with his bare hands. “Please wake up and scream at me for handling you naked,” he begged. Not that he’d not dreamed about handling a naked Stephen Strange before but the circumstances had been much more pleasurable and Stephen had been a willing participant.

The moment he raised Stephen out of the water the Cloak was there to preserve Stephen’s modesty by draping a big towel over him. Tony nodded his thanks and followed it out of the bathroom. He needed to put Stephen down and dry him off before he could take care of the cuts. They had almost stopped bleeding, now that they were out of the water.

“You’re a lot of work, wizard,” he said as he carried Stephen over the threshold to his bedroom. “I’d have preferred to carry you under other circumstances,” he added as he carefully laid the still unconscious man down. A thought later the armor retracted back into its housing. Stephen had already been far too pale the last time Tony had seen him and the blood loss had done nothing for his complexion. “Should have known that it wouldn’t be easy with you.” Under normal conditions he would have been ecstatic to have Stephen pliantly following his instructions and letting himself be manhandled but having to do it like this? Was a dream turned into a nightmare. _Typical. It get what I want but under the worst possible circumstances._ Tony just held on for a moment to gather his wits. “Time to wake up now, Stephen.”

Still no reaction. Desperate to create some illusion of normality he kept up a steady stream of words, trying to get a reaction out of Stephen. “I’m not going to look for now but if you don’t wake up by the time I’m finished with your arms I can’t be held responsible for my actions.” He swapped out the wet towel for the blanket on the bed and kept his word about not looking. He once again made sure that Stephen’s pulse was still strong before concentrating on the mess Stephen had made out of his arms. “As if you weren’t marked enough before,” he murmured as he looked down at the assortment of old scars and new wounds. The bleeding had stopped and left behind a gruesome picture.

He was still trying to decide where to start when the Cloak came over with and suspiciously big first-aid kit. It dropped it down beside them adopted an challenging, waiting position. “Yes, yes, I’m starting!” Tony snapped after he’d inspected it. “Doctor, right,” he reminded himself. “It’s logical that you have a ton of stuff at hand a normal person wouldn’t even know how to use.” He looked down at the bloody mess of Stephen’s arms again. His hands were still shaking, something Tony had noticed before. After Thanos he had tried to find out a little bit more about his new acquaintance and it hadn’t taken him long to find Doctor Stephen Strange’s story. A sad tale and knowing the man behind the headlines made it only more so.

He started to clean the cuts on Stephen’s right arm. They were deliberate, no question about it, and shaky enough to make it clear that they were self-inflicted. But their shape spoke of more than the typical self-harm Tony had encountered before. “Are you a masochist or are you just really unlucky?” he asked quietly as he covered the open wounds with a light bandage. “Every time I see you, you’re hurt in one way or another.” He held on to Stephen’s wrist for a moment and tried in vain to still the shaking before switching over to the left one.

“The second, definitely. I don’t particularly like pain.” Stephen’s voice was weak but clear and his eyes still closed as he answered the question. Tony absolutely did not jump when he heard it, no. But it took him a moment before the finished his work. He held onto Stephen’s hand afterwards, his relief making him insecure and unsure what to do next.

“Good to know. Care to tell me why I found you bleeding out in your bath, then? This,” he gently stroked over the bandages, “doesn’t look like an accident to me. Welcome back, by the way.”

Stephen sighed but he also opened his eyes and looked at Tony. He was really here and not caught in some delirium. Good. “It is also not what it looks like.”

Tony smiled at him and if felt more awkward than any other smile he’d given the last forty or so years. He’d expected an angry barrage of questions and demands, followed by being thrown out of Stephen’s realm. Instead he got answers to his questions and Stephen looking at him with a softness he’d shown the last time on Titan. “That's… good to know. So what…?”

“Blood magic,” Stephen said, as if that explained everything. “It's… complicated.” He closed his eyes, obviously exhausted. “I had to get out of somewhere and this was the only way.”

Tony had learned to hate those words. Especially when spoken by Stephen. “Stay with me,” he begged. “Hey, do you want something to drink? I don’t think you lost too much blood but you know…”

As if on cue the Cloak produced a bottle of water from somewhere and held it under Stephen’s nose until he forced his eyes open again. He glared for a moment before waving it away. “You could let me sit up before force-feeding me,” he grumbled. It took him a moment to get up but Tony just knew that any offer of help would be refused. The blanket slid down and revealed a rather nice-looking chest. Tony tried really hard not to look while Stephen drank but it proved to be impossible. “Like what you see?” Stephen asked sardonically and Tony, to his great horror, felt himself _blush_. Stephen, the bastard, did nothing to cover himself up.

_Fuck it_ , he decided after a moment. “Yes.” He dragged his eyes up to Stephen’s face again. “Very much so. But I have to admit that I would prefer you without the blood and the bandages.”

Stephen shrugged. “Occupational hazard, I fear.” His looked away and studied his arms before carefully touching the bandages on his left arm. “Thanks for that. I’m not used to someone taking care of me like that. I would have done it myself, eventually.”

“When? After you’d drowned in a mix of bathwater and your own blood? And why is nobody here to help you?”

Stephen grimaced. “That may have been an error of judgement. I just wanted to get clean before taking care of the cuts.”

Translation: Blood loss, exhaustion and hot water. Tony knew the mixture only too well and had passed out in the shower from it himself. “That doesn’t answer my second question.”

Stephen hesitated for a moment. “ I live here alone.”

_What?!_ It was like a punch to the stomach. Such an enormous house and such a dangerous life and Stephen was alone? Tony couldn’t - didn’t want to - believe it. What about Wong? “You lead an interesting life, Doctor Strange,” he finally said, unable to articulate his dismay and deciding to let it go for the moment. And just the moment.

“You don’t know the half of it.” Stephen smiled at him before raising his hands and a moment later he was wearing a casual shirt. It was long enough to hide not only his arms but also most of his hands. “Sorry to obstruct the view but it’s pretty cool in here.”

Tony hadn’t noticed but he mourned the knowledge that he had missed his chance to check out one naked sorcerer. “You could have raised the temperature instead.” Was he really flirting with Stephen?

“Then you would be overdressed. You might even have to give up one of your layers.”

And was Stephen really flirting back?

“That… could have been arranged.” Tony made sure to look Stephen dead in the eye to make his meaning crystal-clear. Very slowly and giving the other man all the time in the world to move away he reached out and laid his hand into the palm of Stephen’s right one. _Beautiful hands_ , he thought. Stephen responded by carefully closing his fingers around Tony’s hand. He kept quiet, obviously waiting where this was going. His grip was surprisingly weak, even considering his injuries. Tony had seen what he could do with his hands despite his handicap after all. _What an amazing man_ , he thought not for the first time.

Tony let his gaze wander down and was reminded about what he’d felt under the water when he’d touched Stephen’s waist. He took a moment to just look at Stephen. Too pale, yes, and quite too thin for Tony’s taste. Stephen looked even worse than he had on Titan, freshly rescued from torture. Now he looked sick, worn out and exhausted. It broke Tony’s heart. “But I want to take you out to dinner first,” he suddenly blurted out. Fuck subtlety and fuck this careful dancing around. They were on the same page, Tony just _knew_ it. “After that I wouldn’t be averse to losing layers of clothing.” He wasn’t too keen on the idea of Stephen seeing the awful battlefield that was his chest and the rest of his body but he’d seen Stephen’s damage up close, it was only fair to show his own.

“That sounds nice.” Stephen was fading fast, the exhaustion finally catching up with him. His eyes were almost closed but he still held on. “When?” Stephen finally lost the battle. It was stupid but Tony wanted to gather him up in his arms and tell him to just rest, that he was here to protect him.

“As soon as possible.” Stephen needed someone to take care of him, to be with him in this huge mansion, and Tony could hardly wait to start doing so. “Tomorrow?” He got a small nod. “I’ll leave you to your rest.” He didn’t want to go but he knew that he had to. But when he tried to gently disentangle their hands Stephen refused to let him go.

“Not that I don’t appreciate the timely rescue but… why did you come here, Tony?” He forced his eyes open again. “All the flirting aside we barely know each other.” That was a blatant lie, at least from Stephen’s perspective. Tony knew that he had seen about 14 million timelines, there was no way that he didn’t get to know Tony in a ton of them. It was Tony who had a lot of catching up to do and he was looking forward to that. But he wanted an awake and coherent conversation partner, not a zombie. He was still searching for a version of _I like the little bit I know of you and I think you’re hot so I want to really get to know you without death and destruction haunting us at every turn_ that didn’t make him sound like a creepy stalker.

“Later,” Tony promised. “Sleep first. We’ll talk about it on our date.”

“Date,” Stephen repeated, smiling. “I like the sound of that. Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow.” Tony took his hand back with the greatest of care. “Call me when you’re awake, okay? You have my number.” He’d spammed Stephen with enough voice messages after all. 

“Hmm.”

He took the vague sound as confirmation. Stephen had already slipped away into sleep and his Cloak was watching both of them with surprising patience. “You’ll watch over him, right?” Tony asked and was relieved when he got a nod back. “And promise me that you’ll get him to call me? I promise that I’ll be good to him.”

The Cloak just levitated there, probably judging him, before giving its assent.

“Good Cloak.” Tony couldn’t resist and was punished by a not quite harmless swat on his ass as he stood up. The retaliated with a much gentler one. “Hush now, we don’t want to wake him up, don’t we?” He hesitated for a moment before bending down to push a strand of hair away from Stephen’s face before settling on his carotid artery once again. “Sleep well, Stephen.” His touch lingered for a moment, just feeling the strong and regular pulse under his fingertips.

He could hardly wait to get his hands on Stephen for real. To hold him, touch him, to caress him, to take care of him. Kiss him. And, of course, to fuck him into the mattress. Although Tony suspected that he would have to wait a while before Stephen was well enough for that. It didn’t matter. He was in this for the long haul, he could wait.

_He knows me_ , Tony reminded himself, not for the first time. _He wouldn’t have responded like that if he didn’t like me back and didn’t see a chance for us._

Now they just had to get through their first date. So, no pressure. At all. Tony had always been good under pressure or so he’d been told. He could do this. They could.

**Author's Note:**

> [Original post](https://amethyst-noir.tumblr.com/post/179976859086/not-a-bad-day/) (with a little bit more of author's notes). What can I say? I like to talk to the precious Anons who send me those amazing prompts. :) I love to interact, so come into my inbox - anon or not - and talk to me.


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